Job done!

First I went to PC World where a patronising young man tried to sell me a load of things I didn’t want (Office, bag etc.) and then told me that the computer I wanted wasn’t actually in stock but I could go to the High Street Kensington branch to get it. The whole point of going to PC World was that it’s 10 min walk from here so the idea of having to get the tube round to HSK was not very appealing and the bloke had irritated me so much at this point I was determined to buy it anywhere but PC World.

I then wandered down Tottenham Court Road, London’s electrical goods high street, and looked round about 8 different shops. In only one of them did anybody offer any assistance. Guess which one I eventually went back to?

In the end I went for an HP without too many bells and whistles but it has a nice 15” widescreen and seems to be doing the job. It cost a very reasonable £400 (both my previous laptops were about £1k) so am pretty happy. The big bonus is that it automatically detects the wireless network, so I don’t have to plug in the irritating lead that used to keep disconnecting itself on the old computer. I now have a keyboard that works and a mouse that doesn’t select everything in sight… hurrah!

And it takes about a minute to switch on – a huge improvement and time-saver for the New Year. Am very pleased!

My Shiny New Mac!!

Well I am online and I have managed to upload photos so that’s the two most important things done!

Now comes about 6 months of learning how to use it…

It is soooooooooooooooooooooo pretty!! I loves it!

IT’S HERE!!!!

As are all its bits.
And it’s beautiful. Well the box is beautiful! I will have an official de-boxing ceremony when I get home!

_{MUST think of a name before then. It really has to be a god-ish name, something from Greek mythology perhaps? Please help!}

5pm just cannot come quickly enough… OMGOMGOMGOMGOMGOMG…!!!

And due to arrive Monday!!

OMG I can’t believe this is actually gonna happen woooooooooooo!

And should be arriving before Christmas!
I used the chat function on the apple site as I was ordering and got some really useful advice from the guy there – he was very helpful. It turns out there was one of the upgrade options that would have delayed the order so I settled for the 250GB hard drive and will install my own software and that way I can have it before Christmas – still getting the 4GB ram that I wanted so woooooop!

The goal specifies “get” so I will complete it once the macbook is in my hot little hands, a long with all the microphone gear, yay yay yay!!

to the Apple Store and I think I have decided!! We went around and tried them all out and worked out all the gizmos and it was all so shiny and exciting!
I may well place the order tomorrow.
This is by far the most expensive thing I’ve ever bought myself, but it’s going to be a tool that’ll let me do so many things so much better, and really get moving on my dreams, and I don’t feel at all bad about using my savings for something like that.

I CAN’T WAIT!!!

OMG it’s a jungle out there! Things have changed so much since I last bought a computer!! Back in the day I thought 40GB was huge and I’d never get through it but now… there are ones with ten times that! wow!

And the whole issue is complicated by wanting to do more with it than just write e-mails and wonk spreadsheets – what are the advantages of Macs vs. PCs for music software and the kind of basic graphics stuff I’m doing for my fledgling business?

Usually I would just buy the one with the best specs for my money, but now there are just so many options…

If anyone has any opinions (particularly on the Mac/PC issue) I would be really grateful…!

well not really needs, wants, I guess. This was going to have to happen sooner or later, and I have decided that I want to start a (very tiny) home studio, so for the sake of creativity it needs to be sooner!

Good old Sophie has done me proud actually – four years and still going, hasn’t suffered death by drowning in suspicious circumstances like poor old Toby, and has battled on through a Japanese adapter and with the aid of a constant external fan for years. But she is getting old and slow, not enough memory, it takes like forever to load up simple applications like WORD (lol) and no amount of uninstalling and defragging seems to make any difference.

I am thinking about going Mac (oooh, controversial!) seeing as Sophie will still run for those times when I just need PCness, but we’ll see – that might be too big a step!!